The present application relates generally to the field of online advertising. More particularly, the present application relates to the field of exploration for search advertising.
A content delivery system operates to provide items of content to users accessing online resources over a network such as the internet. Online resources include web sites and web pages provided over the network to a user device of a user. Online content includes text, graphics, images, video and other information communicated with a web page by a web site to the user. The content delivery system may provide the online content in response to a search query received from the user.
The content delivery system endeavors to provide most relevant content to a user. Most relevant content is the content or advertising most likely to cause the user to interact with the content. Interaction may be by clicking on a content item, taking some action such as making an online purchase or providing a credit card number, or merely viewing a content item provided by the content delivery system.
Advertisements are ranked and selected based on expected revenue produced for an advertiser associated with the advertisement. Expected revenue may be referred to as expected cost per mille, or eCPM, referring to the expected cost per one thousand impressions delivered for the advertisement. Expected revenue for an advertisement is typically calculated as a product of a bid amount and a click probability. The bid amount is the amount the advertiser associated with the advertisement agrees to pay when an end user sees the advertisement on a web page and clicks on the advertisement. The bid amount is set by the advertiser. The operator of the content delivery system has control over the click probability. This makes developing an accurate estimation of initial click probability an important matter for the operation of the content delivery system. However, in the case of advertisements newly placed in the system, it may be difficult to determine accurately the initial estimation of click probability. Without an accurate estimate of click probability, a new advertisement may receive very few impressions which makes it difficult for the system to increase accuracy of the estimate of click probability over time. The content delivery system seeks to optimize advertising for revenue.
The content delivery system selects content for delivery to the system based on factors such as experience with the content item or user, or information known about the user's demographics or interests, for example. Similarly, the content delivery system selects advertisements based on eCPM. The selected content items and advertisements are placed on a web page and sent to the end user in response to a query from the end user.
One problem encountered by a content delivery system is the cold start problem. When the content delivery system injects new content (or advertisements) into the system, the new content is referred to as cold content, meaning content with which the content delivery system has little or no experience by which to estimate its likely performance. The cold content must compete with other, warmer content, meaning content with which the content delivery system has at least some experience with user reaction to the content. The cold start problem refers to the problem of the content delivery system learning about the quality of the new content and to subsequently deliver it reliably and appropriately. The coldness of the cold content prevents the system from producing an accurate estimate of the click through probability.
It is desirable for an online provider operating a content delivery system to provide a system and method for addressing the cold start problem. For the online provider, addressing this problem will enable providing desirable content and advertising to a user. Moreover, addressing this problem by an online provider can operate to further engage advertisers for their mutual benefit. Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the disclosure set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.